This past weekend, we watched a 16 year-old young woman on the verge of hysterics scold adults and give them a big “how dare you”. That scowling, teenage girl was none other than climate change activist, Greta Thunberg.

I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back at school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you! You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words.”-Greta Thunberg

How dare us all.

Our very own Victory Girl, Deanna, addressed Miss Thunberg’s ASD from the perspective of a mom who has been there, done that and currently living this reality every day and I must say, doing a damn great job. We’ve seen Thunberg’s anxiety escalate into these histrionics to the point of her scolding parents around the world. We’ve seen teenagers like David Hogg call out adults for being “old ass” and unable to navigate technology. All of this unfolds before our eyes in the news. They are the poster children of entitled, privileged little brats that we DO see.

There are the scowling ones we do not see making national headlines. The everyday kid next door. Some of them, may be our very own. Stay with me here because I will be the first to say that I am by no stretch of the imagination a perfect parent. As modern-day parents, however, we have enabled these kids for way too long and they have wronged them. Let us count the ways.

Thunberg and Hogg are extreme cases here. But the list of what seems to be mild offenses of parenting impacts all of us in the end. I don’t care if it’s the boy who looks like Pig Pen and refuses to shower who ends up being the smelly guy in the office to the wanna-be thug who’s “just going through a phase of trying to be the too cool rapper” to “Daddy’s Little Princess” who bullies other girls because she’s the smartest and prettiest who, as an adult, makes her husband’s life a living hell of being her shadow. We are wronging our kids. And it’s time we stop.

After all parents, how dare we bring a child into the world who cannot function as an adult? However, modern-day parenting has made it very easy to cater to our children’s every whim. If we can’t, they scowl. We find every disorder in the book to excuse bad behavior or lack of general social graces, to blame everyone else for our kids and their behavior but not point at ourselves. They have been conditioned to expect everything from us as parents. And, if we can provide it, that’s great. But some young people have not been taught to appreciate the sacrifices their parents make to give them a comfortable life and a safe environment in which to thrive. When parents are busy thinking about how it is someone else’s job (like the government) to take care of them, while telling their offspring to go out and “change the world”, what else can we expect from their spawn but haughtiness and entitlement?

From the time they come kicking and screaming into this world, we put them on dietary restrictions, we germ-proof like everything, we micromanage their playdates and we pass judgement on other parents who don’t do the above. We love our children and will do anything to fight for them but we also turn a blind eye to their shortcomings. We put cell phones in their hands and expect them to navigate the dangerous territory that is social media without hurting others or becoming depressed themselves. We fight with teachers about their grades. We shriek at other parents and say “no” to squirt gun fights in our neighborhoods but years later, give them the keys to a piece of machinery that can kill someone. We tell them to live their “truth” even if their “truth” has them in hysterics, or their “truth” makes them a total douche to other kids and other adults or their “truth” means changing their gender before they even understand the concepts of pronouns and puberty. Some parents encourage “kindness” and causes and social justice by going with them to marches and some, on the opposite side of the pendulum, take them to church, fill them with Bible verses without explaining their meaning and having them act on them. They think just by doing these things alone makes a “good” kid and they don’t do much else. Meanwhile, injustice unfolds in their surrounding communities to which they are completely oblivious. These parents are afraid of the word “consequences”. They don’t want to scar their kids in this already broken world by taking privileges away, saying the word “no” (which my son knows is a complete sentence, by-the-way) or having their kids not like them. Or, they are simply too physically tired, too lazy or too mentally exhausted to care about seizing an opportunity that could be a teaching moment.

It’s time for parents to toughen up, be vigilant, have those difficult conversations and to stop playing to their children’s-or their own-neuroses. It’s time for us to encourage independent thought versus mob-rule collectivism in our children. It’s time for us to challenge them in their activism and make sure they are capable of critical thought before spouting off their mouths to or disrespecting us or other adults. It’s time they’ve learned consequences. It’s time to give some of them a good dose of reality before someone or something else does. Have them out in the community, explain the good, the bad and yes, even the ugly. And for the love of God, let them play with the stupid squirt guns. And yes, they should be in school…so make them go! Don’t steal their youth. Love your kids with reckless abandon, fight for them, advocate for them, be their biggest cheerleader but remember, you are in charge. I know we’re tired. I know it’s hard. And I know that while some days I’m rocking this mom thing, there are days I truly suck as a parent. But in noticing bad behaviors, scowling kids are the product of the parents who enable them. What we do allow will continue and I, for one, think our kids deserve a better future than this.

Welcome Instapundit Readers!

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